ADYNAMIJE. 379 



and to cover acidity, or from their not being supplied in due 

 quantity. How the former may be occasioned, we do not well 

 understand ; but we can readily perceive that the latter, per- 

 haps the former also, may proceed from a weaker action of the 

 muscular fibres of the stomach. In certain cases, sedative pas- 

 sions, immediately after they arise, occasion the appearance of 

 acidity in the stomach, which did not appear before ; and the 

 use of stimulants often corrects or obviates an acidity that would 

 otherwise have appeared. From these considerations, we con- 

 clude, that the production and subsistence of acidity in the 

 stomach is to be especially prevented, by restoring and exciting 

 the proper action of it by the several means to be mentioned 

 hereafter. 



MCCIX. But it is also to be further observed, that, though 

 there are certain powers in the stomach for preventing a too co- 

 pious acidity, or a high degree of it, they are not, however, 

 always sufficient for preventing acescency, or for covering the 

 acidity produced ; and therefore, as long as vegetable substances 

 remain in the stomach, their acescency may go on and in- 

 crease. From hence we perceive, that a special cause of the 

 excess of acidity may be the too long retention of acescent 

 matters in the stomach ; whether this may be from those mat- 

 ters being of more difficult solution, or from the weakness of the 

 stomach more slowly discharging its contents into the -duodenum, 

 or from some impediment to the free evacuation of the stomach 

 by the pylorus. The latter of these causes we are well ac- 

 quainted with, in the case of a scirrhous pylorus, producing 

 commonly the highest degree of acidity. In all the instances of 

 this scirrhosity I have met with, I have found it incurable. 

 But the first of those causes is to be obviated by avoiding 

 such aliments as are of difficult solution ; and the second is to 

 be mended by the several remedies for exciting the action of the 

 stomach, to be mentioned afterwards. 



MCCX. The third symptom commonly accompanying dys- 

 pepsia, which requires to be immediately removed, is costive- 

 ness. There is so much connexion between the several portions 

 of the alimentary canal with respect to the peristaltic motion, 

 that, if accelerated or retarded in any one part, the other parts 

 of it are commonly affected in the same manner. Thus, as the 



